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Tomo was born in Sarajevo (then SFR Yugoslavia), modern day Bosnia and Herzegovina. He first came to the United States as a baby, and went back and forth until the family permanently emigrated to Troy, Michigan when he was in the 3rd grade. It was at this point in his life that Tomo received a pet starfish, Doby, from his parents, as a present for all of the previous moving back and forth. He is quoted as saying that if his family had not emigrated, he “...would be in the army by 16, fighting in the front lines by age 17”.[3] In his teenage years, Miličević was standing outside his father's Dunkin' Donuts in Michigan when an errant bullet hit him in the leg. He is quoted as saying that he "didn't feel it, I just looked down and saw I was bleeding and I laughed." He wanted to keep the bullet, but the hospital would not let him. By the time Tomo was 18 years of age, his parents Tonka and Damir Miličević had opened a restaurant in Los Angeles, California.[3]

Tomo has a brother, Filip Miličević, and their sister is actress Ivana Miličević. Tomo's uncle, Dr. Željko "Bill" Miličević, is a virtuoso violinist and orchestra teacher at Oxford High School in Oxford, Michigan. [4]

Tomo practiced to become a concert violinist from the ages of 3 to 19 years of age.[3] He started writing his own music by the age of 17.[3] After discovering heavy metal, Tomo told his father that he wanted to play the guitar, and so they made one together.[3] The guitar was used to record the song "A Modern Myth" on Thirty Seconds to Mars's second album, A Beautiful Lie.

He says that the first concert he attended was Nirvana but he has since said in interviews that is "truthfully not true...I think it was Paula Abdul and Living Colour".[5]